


All's Fair

by Querulousgawks



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Nostalgia, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pre-series Veronica Mars ficlet, sort of between a headcanon and a story. (Thanks to bryrosea and fatherjerusalem for brainstorming middle-school entertainments with me, a while ago.)</p><p>Veronica was always the scorekeeper. She couldn't just turn it off, even when her friends all died or disappeared or turned into persistent, smirking monsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All's Fair

When they played cards, dressed up and bored behind the scenes of grownup parties, Veronica always kept score.

Duncan won steadily at rummy despite the adorable struggle to bluff- he could slip up time after time, but just keep getting good hands, she couldn’t find the line between skill and luck for him. Story of my life, Lilly would grumble, and Logan would smirk: you can only be lucky in one, Lils.

If a quirk in Logan’s eyebrows or her own eye for the numbers raised the flicker of doubt, it was extinguished every time by the sight of Duncan’s square shoulders lifting, his clear eyes surprised at the hand even as he played it. She could feel the conviction grow with every glance they exchanged, dealing out four on her ratty couch or the poolhouse floor. He wouldn’t. Not Duncan Kane.  

Logan cheated every chance he got, flamboyantly and without gain, palming Scrabble letters and Yahtzee dice or drawing cards from the middle without knowing what was on top. He’d rattle off personal questions and dirty jokes to cover but his own glee would give him away; they could all catch him at it.    

Lilly only cheated when she wanted to win. Veronica caught her, she figured, about half the time. 

(Later, bored on the pep squad, Lilly would rate the boys by body part in a low running whisper and Veronica would roll her eyes and say, is this a soccer match or a deli counter? But she couldn’t forget a point system - for years after she’d see a shirt ride up and think,  _hipbones, seven out of ten,_ to the memory of Lilly’s delighted laugh.) 

Duncan disappeared and Lilly died and there weren’t many games left in her life, but numbers stayed with her, distracting, comforting. She’d track car models passing outside the window when her dad worked late, or run the odds on the fidelity of couples at Dog Beach when she couldn’t stand the packed-up house. The PI reception biz turned out to be one long series of private bets: who they were, why they came, double your money if you guessed right before they got in the door. Even when the numbers were ugly, it was better than being surprised. 

And then Logan turned on her and it was a good thing she had kept practicing. Because here was her oldest scorebook opening in her mind, she may as well have had a stubby pencil like the ones he would swipe from the Scrabble box when they tried to get her to play for fun. She tracked every careful prank and casual shove, she couldn’t turn it off. For months, each generated a memory, of kindness to her or the Kanes or -worse- cruelty in their defense. She’d never wondered about the targets, then.

He tripped her on her way to the podium in speech class and she remembered his hand closing over her ankle, steadying her as she stood on his shoulders to unhook Lilly’s window when they were bringing her home drunk. It shouldn’t have been equally weighted, that second of firm warmth against the bruise that lasted for days; but she had been scared, and he had known and reassured her silently. She didn’t make the rules. 

The list lasted a long time, considering. Trash spilled out of her locker and she remembered balloon animals on her birthday, stubby-legged dachsunds and giraffes in suggestive positions. A crack in her car window made her so furious she went home sick to keep herself from an assault charge, but once home it just sent her looking through her closet for the two damned stuffed bears.  She’d found them smushed under a huge one in her front seat the one good Valentine’s Day, with a note signed L&L:  _Duncan said ours had to stay down here so you’d see his first._   She’d given the big one to the Easter Seals but she couldn’t lose Lilly’s, or separate the pair, any more than she could stop remembering.

Until almost October of the next year, when he asked her where her mother was. “Any idea?” She kept her face blank, waited for some damn saccharine recollection, and came up empty. She started thinking about revenge.

(After she planted it, of course, she had to see him put two fingers on Duncan’s wrist as he wandered away from his locker. Had to hear Logan say, “English, man” and redirect him so easily no one else saw the blankness in his eyes. _Not applicable,_ she insisted but she couldn’t cook the books, she wasn’t built that way. The score had been settled for such a short period of time and now -she didn’t know what to do.)

Then he smashed her headlights and the relief ran cool in her veins. Clean slate. And if she thought  _wrists - eight out of ten_ at the swing of the crowbar, just before she flinched from the sound - who could blame her? Plenty of people, but not the dead girl in her head, saying “ _seven, max- he’s lost something._ " That girl, she thought, would salami his car the second he got it back. The roar of the bikes approaching drowned out the next strike, and Veronica smiled. 


End file.
